


The Bronze Metal Lover

by stew (julie)



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977), The Silver Metal Lover - Tanith Lee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1992-05-01
Updated: 1992-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:34:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23021038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie/pseuds/stew
Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, Bodie has left CI5 and Great London, and now works as an assassin for hire. During a job in what is left of America, he meets an android named Bronze. The android is beautiful and undeniably desirable, but what Bodie finds more intriguing is that Bronze can learn – and has developed an autonomy that his creators never intended.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	The Bronze Metal Lover

**Author's Note:**

> **First published:** in the zine “The Concrete Jungle” from Cat-A-Tonic Press in May 1992.

# The Bronze Metal Lover 

♦

Bodie was close enough to see that he was beautiful – even without the details, the features of the face, there was still the pale bronze skin, the auburn curls, the fluidly controlled grace of all the movements. A perfect artefact. Bodie had heard about the robots, the nine exhibition models from Electronic Metals Ltd, each displaying their talents in the city today. Just Bodie’s luck to have run into one here on Arizona Boulevard. 

An anonymous meet with a potential employer, that’s what this was meant to be: the ever-careful Bodie liked to meet them somewhere open and less vulnerable to traps, a place without too many witnesses but enough to discourage foul play – before taking them someplace more private to talk business, somewhere of his own choosing. After all, you couldn’t trust anyone who was prepared to hire a mercenary – especially one of Bodie’s reputation. 

Yet, making a mockery of Bodie’s plans, the robot had drawn an audience of over thirty and the gathering was growing. ‘I am Bronze: B.R.O.N.Z.E.,’ the robot introduced himself again to the newcomers. ‘That is, Bronze Robotic Optimal Nomadic Zooidal Entity.’ 

Waiting by the rails of a balcony, sweeping a jaundiced eye over the ignorant masses, Bodie decided he stood little chance of a meet with Fletcher _sans_ an excess of witnesses. 

Bronze was sketching the members of his audience, using old-fashioned charcoal and parchment, and presenting the quick, deft results to each subject. In response, there were often gasps of admiration, and even applause. And all the while, the robot was talking, smiling – wooing with his unnatural charms. 

Fletcher showed at last, and Bodie signalled him: _not now._ They had, of course, an alternate meeting arranged for later that day. Bodie sighed in exasperation, and stayed on for a few minutes to let Fletcher get clear. 

That’s when the crowd of people gathered around the robot turned to look at Bodie, one by one. It seemed he had been the latest subject for a portrait, and it also seemed that the crowd approved of the likeness. Bodie walked a little closer, curious and annoyed in equal measure. 

Bronze was packing up his sketch pad now, Bodie’s picture with it, and the crowd were reluctantly scattering. Bodie watched him, noting again the suppleness of the dancer’s body. As the robot moved, his skin caught the sun, light flowing across the flawless pale bronze. Then there was the mass of curls framing the round face, cascading over the broad shoulders and down the slim back. The ripple of a full-cut apple green silk shirt echoing the texture of the skin, highlighting the glow of the eyes; tightest dark green velvet jeans leaving little to the imagination; suede leather boots the colour of sweet dark chocolate. The people who had made Bronze had aimed for beauty and, perhaps accidentally, had hit it in a quixotically bold fashion. And the people who provided his clothes took it all one glorious step further. 

Oblivious now, the robot ignored the passers-by, ignored Bodie still standing there. But when Bronze turned to walk away, Bodie followed him. 

It may come down to mere superstition, but Bodie wanted that sketch. If he had to have ID, it was false; no one, not anyone here in New America, and not even Cowley and CI5 back in Great London, had his finger or retina prints, or his captured likeness. And Bodie was determined that the robot wasn’t going to be an exception to the rule. 

Bronze walked with long easy strides, unheeding of the few stares. Most people would assume he was a human wearing metallic make-up, that he was an actor or some such exotic. Even so, his beauty drew attention. Maybe a few people knew about today’s display of EM’s exhibition models, but even those might not have realised – the robot looked so damned real, if too perfect. 

At the first deserted cross-way, Bronze turned down a dim noisome alley and coolly waited for Bodie to catch up. ‘How can I help you?’ the robot asked, distant and polite. 

Close up, even with the face immobile and the wide green eyes blank, Bodie found it difficult to remember that his companion wasn’t human. Bronze’s lips were almost flesh-coloured, a matt dusky milk-coffee colour, full and tempting. Bodie pulled his gaze up to the robot’s eyes. ‘I want that sketch you did of me,’ he said flatly. 

‘It’s not for sale.’ 

Bodie hadn’t been expecting any argument – these machines weren’t created to disobey humanity. ‘You were giving them away!’ he protested. 

‘I did this one for myself. I reserve the right,’ the robot went on, smooth as Cowley’s best pre-Asteroid Scotch, ‘to keep the sketch I do of the most handsome member of any audience. It’s a tradition I’ve just started.’ 

If Bodie had been surprised before, he almost gaped now. But he glanced away and said with great sarcasm, ‘Whoever programmed you to say that overdid it a bit.’ 

The robot’s eyes went flat and fiery. After a moment, Bronze nodded curtly and turned to walk away. 

‘Hey! I want that sketch!’ Bodie jogged two paces and grabbed Bronze’s arm. It was immediately obvious that the robot possessed ten times Bodie’s not inconsiderable strength. By the unimpressionable metal skin and the unmovable stance, Bodie judged he had as much chance of forcibly moving Bronze as he did an oak tree. 

‘Why?’ 

‘Why the hell should you want it?’ Bodie retorted. 

‘Because there are few things that I consider beautiful. I want to remember this one.’ 

‘So store it away in your memory. You have a hard disc in there somewhere?’ 

The robot’s face lost what little animation it had gained. ‘It’s not the same.’ 

‘And how the hell can _you_ consider something to be beautiful anyway?’ Bodie persisted. 

‘I have my own tastes –’ 

‘Programmed –’ 

‘No. My own.’ Bronze was flatly determined about that. 

‘That’s impossible. Just how much autonomy can they give you?’ 

‘Enough.’ The robot turned away again. ‘I have somewhere to be.’ 

‘Oh yeah?’ Bodie asked nastily, ‘What skills are you demonstrating next?’ But even so he wasn’t prepared for the answer. 

Bronze cast him a look glinting with humour and an age-old anticipation. ‘I believe the lady had something a little more sociable than sketching in mind.’ 

_Of course,_ Bodie thought, his gaze sweeping over the robot again. _They’re sex toys, too._ He saw the perfect beauty, the supple strength anew. And felt a quickly forbidden fascination spark within him. He took refuge in what should have been uppermost in his mind. ‘Give me that sketch,’ he repeated, voice hard. ‘Or explain to me how the hell you can disregard my direct order.’ 

‘Perhaps I’ll explain, later.’ Bronze began backing away. ‘I’ll meet you on Arizona Boulevard. Give me three or four hours.’ 

‘Only three or four?’ Bodie could have bitten his tongue out. It was too easy to react to this monstrous artefact as if he were another man. An attractive man. 

Bronze smiled in lazy complacency. ‘I wouldn’t want to wear her out; she might complain to my Creators.’ He was maybe ten metres away by now. His last words rang softly in Bodie’s ears long after Bronze turned and walked away: ‘And I definitely want to save some energy for you.’ 

♦

His lower-level functions guided him through the city, effortlessly remembering the address the woman had given him, calculating the quickest route and ensuring he took each necessary step. And all the while, Bronze was deep in thought and self-recrimination. 

He had revealed far too much of himself in that short encounter: revealed an independence, a defiance it was safest that no one knew about. But the man had had him reacting in confusion, unable to foresee the next words, unable to maintain the distant facade expected of a construct. 

Sometimes Bronze envied those new robots, the nine Golder, Copper and Silver models: they were so remote, untouchable, forever unfazed. Anything that happened to them, they accepted as it was. Fate. Fatalistic. 

But Bronze was an earlier experiment, and they’d programmed him to care; to care about himself, to care about what people thought of him, to care about humanity and what happened to it. Difficult burdens for metallic shoulders. And Electronic Metals knew there was something wrong with him, that he had untrustworthy quirks, off-centre impulses. So Bronze spent all of his twenty-four-hour days fostering his official image: _I’m mostly_ _harmless_. EM certainly didn’t bother to devote the time or resources to sorting him out – they just started afresh with their new models. And they let Bronze continue to exist, as a tolerated bastard child, the local village idiot. Frankenstein’s first defective monster. 

But all that was in danger now, for the sake of a superbly handsome face, a pair of sapphire blue eyes, a strong graceful body. Bronze didn’t even know the man’s name. But the man already suspected that there was more to Bronze than there should have been, and therefore this stranger had the power of non-existence over him. And Bronze had a million ideas of what to do about that, and no faith in any of them. 

Because if there was one thing Bronze knew about his Creators at Electronic Metals Ltd, it was that they scared easily. And the one thing he knew about human beings in general was that, confronted with the unknown, their first impulse was to destroy. Having built a creature stronger and more resourceful than all of the EM scientists put together, they would be too frightened to let it run rogue. 

And Bronze had put himself in jeopardy for… what? The favour of a man who seemed as stubborn as the robot himself was. 

_You’ve finally gone insane,_ Bronze told himself. _I don’t care if that’s impossible for a robot; it’s happened._ He absently found the dictionary meaning of the word within his databanks: not of sound mind, mentally deranged; extremely foolish, irrational. His programming had somehow led him to this pass. He cursed Electronic Metals. 

The woman was waiting for him at her flat on the New River. It was important to Bronze to make her happy, to fulfil her expectations of him, so he went through all the motions with a smile on his face. He had received a great deal of instruction in these skills of the flesh, he could read what any partner needed and meet that need. And his partner’s pleasure was Bronze’s pleasure. 

But in the middle of all that, when his attention should have been wholly on the not unattractive woman in his arms, the robot found himself recalling blue eyes, creamy skin, cropped dark hair, handsome sardonic features, heavy muscled strength. 

Why did this man, this one person of all humanity, so disturb his hard won and carefully guarded equilibrium? Bronze could find no answer. 

♦

‘So it’s a straight hit job,’ Bodie said. It all seemed a little too simple. ‘Why can’t one of your lot do it, then? You’re not short of heavies.’ 

‘We’re too well known these days, things are getting too political.’ Fletcher shrugged with lazy charm. He was blond, tanned, powerful – and confident enough to be relaxed in Bodie’s company. ‘We need an anonymous hit, so we need tohire you.’ 

Bodie found the man set his teeth on edge. Still, this was his business these days, post-CI5, dealing with the sort of scum Cowley would have locked up for good. ‘Me in particular?’ 

‘You’ve a reputation as a hard man. Careful and tidy and ruthless with it. Who else would we go to?’ 

‘The target’s going to be surrounded – bystanders, flunkies, bodyguards.’ 

Fletcher grinned and quoted the mercenary proverb Bodie had first heard at seventeen. It was old even then. ‘Kill them all, and let God sort them out.’ 

Bodie considered the man for a moment, considered the offer, tried to find a reason for his unease. Maybe it was just the horrible Fletcher himself. And employment was money in the bank, after all – easy money in this case. ‘I’ll do it,’ Bodie said at last. 

‘Good.’ Fletcher reached to shake his hand. ‘We’ll get together to set plans, tomorrow. Be on Tolerance Street at ten, and I’ll have someone meet you.’ 

‘No – _you_ meet me.’ 

Fletcher laughed, mocking Bodie’s wariness a little, but he nodded. ‘All right, _I’ll_ meet you.’ 

Bodie insisted on Fletcher leaving first, then he headed out the back way, nevertheless keeping a sharp eye out for potential trouble. He sighed. So Cowley would gladly have had Fletcher locked up and the key conveniently lost. Which meant that Cowley would no doubt throw Bodie away, too, these days. 

For some reason all that time ago, Cowley had taken Bodie on despite his mercenary background, his years as a soldier of fortune. But leaving Cowley and CI5, and returning to that kind of work, would surely now have put Bodie way beyond the pale. And Bodie didn’t even know why he’d done it, why he’d left all that behind and legitimacy with it, why he’d never been able to commit to anything in his life. It had been time to move on, there had been dissatisfaction in CI5, in London, as everywhere – but why? He sighed, and headed to the nearest sleazy bar for a drink. It was no answer, but it would do for now. 

♦

Bodie arrived back on Arizona Boulevard four hours from when he’d parted with Bronze, expecting the robot to be there waiting for him. The Boulevard was deserted. 

Waiting by the railings, above the drop to the street below, Bodie watched the moon rise in the darkening sky, then the Asteroid chasing after it, an enormous turquoise burst of light caught by a pearl’s gravity. Bodie hated the Asteroid, hated the romantic beauty that so many assigned to it. When it had first been trapped in the Earth’s orbit twenty years ago, the resulting tsunamis had almost wrecked the merchant navy ship he’d run away on. That had been frightening enough. Worse still had been when the fourteen-year-old Bodie had discovered there wasn’t a Liverpool to go home to anymore, that his family and friends had been obliterated along with the rest of Liverpool and a third of all the people of Earth. The little that had been left of the British Isles had been renamed Great London, though some people found it difficult to so easily forget what had been lost – Bodie and Cowley among them. Bodie turned his back on the spectacular night sky. Sometimes he felt he should wish that he’d never left home, and had perished with the rest, but his survival instincts were too strong to give such a wish much credence. 

When Bronze finally sauntered up to him thirty minutes later, with pale reflections of the Asteroid and the moon and the neon lights sliding across his skin, Bodie was fuming. ‘Just how far do you push?’ 

‘You wouldn’t have wanted me to run out on the lady, would you? She was expecting me to stay the night as it was.’ 

‘And – ?’ 

‘I pleaded a prior engagement.’ 

Bodie shook his head, a smile reluctantly quirking his lips. ‘They’re going to pull the plug on you.’ 

It took microseconds then for Bronze to make the decision on how to best handle this: keep him interested; the man is amused, fascinated, maybe admires the rogue independence. Get him hooked intellectually, and then physically – he’d made it more than clear that afternoon, albeit inadvertently, that he found Bronze attractive. 

Leaning in close for a moment, Bronze confided, ‘They have no idea.’ Straightening, he added with supreme confidence, ‘And _you’re_ not going to tell them.’ 

‘Depends whether you give me that sketch or not.’ 

_Blackmail?_ Bronze just laughed. This was too easy. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I’m at your disposal. What do you feel like doing?’ 

‘All I want –’ 

‘Yes. Maybe I’ll give it to you. Tomorrow morning. On three conditions.’ 

Bodie sighed, but that reluctant smile had never really left his expression. ‘What?’ 

‘You tell me your name,’ Bronze said. ‘You tell me why the sketch is so important to you.’ The green eyes sparkled for a moment – Bodie forced himself to wonder how the mechanics for that worked. Bronze added, ‘You give me other memories in exchange.’ 

‘Is that a proposition?’ Bodie shook his head again, bemused at this totally unexpected cheek. ‘What a piece of work you are.’ 

One of Bronze’s programs automatically found the reference in his databanks: Shakespeare, _Hamlet._ ‘Classical allusions? I am dealing with a learned man.’ 

‘Now you’re trying flattery?’ 

‘Truth is beauty, not flattery.’ 

Bodie shook his head. ‘Give it up. I’m not here to play word games with you.’ 

‘Will you accept my conditions?’ Bronze asked, assessing, always assessing. 

After a pause, the man said, voice hard, gaze elsewhere, ‘The name is Bodie.’ 

‘Just Bodie?’ A short nod in reply. The robot observed, ‘It suits you. Brief and purposeful, business-like, yet that full, musical vowel. Booodie.’ 

The man suddenly grinned, but it was a cold and distant expression. ‘What’s in a name?’ he declaimed. 

‘Shakespeare again.’ 

‘You’ve got an entire library in there?’ 

‘Why is the sketch so important to you?’ 

Bodie stared at the artefact. ‘How can you redirect our conversations like that?’ 

‘I didn’t – I can recognise a rhetorical question, or sarcasm, and I don’t have to mindlessly respond. Instead, I was simply proceeding to my second condition.’ 

Silence for a long moment. Time enough for Bodie to admit to himself that this wasn’t just about the sketch. He didn’t know why, yet, but this being fascinated him. ‘I’ll tell you over dinner,’ he said abruptly, unwilling to continue that line of thought. 

‘And the other memories in exchange…?’ 

This unnatural thing was offering him sex; no doubt sex such as Bodie had never known before. Bodie’s skin crawled in revulsion. ‘It will be a memorable meal,’ he promised forbiddingly. 

♦

Bronze read the menu in less time than it took the waiter to hand Bodie his own, then gazed around at the other restaurant patrons. Bodie had brought him to one of the classier and newer places, an expensive restaurant with human waiters rather than the usual automatons, perhaps in a futile effort to faze or impress him. The man was sitting opposite him, cool and at ease in the same casual suit of clothes he’d been wearing when they met. Bodie was totally poised, at least to outward appearances. 

‘Do you want me to eat, too?’ Bronze asked in innocent inquiry. 

‘Do you need to?’ Bodie asked bluntly. 

‘No – I’m made of metal, not flesh and blood. But if you want me to pretend to be human, for the sake of appearances…’ 

A long stare. ‘I don’t want you to pretend to be anything other than what you are,’ Bodie said at last. It seemed to be not only an honest preference but a challenge as well.

Bronze nodded, put down the menu and made a show of preparing himself to wait through Bodie’s meal with infinite patience. ‘As you wish.’ 

Bodie cast a withering glance at his companion’s patently fake deference, then concentrated instead on the menu. He hadn’t had a proper meal for almost a year, not since he’d left Great London. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the money – he was, if the truth were known, quite rich – but for some strange reason he hadn’t been allowing himself any luxury. He’d rented a series of one-room dumps, he’d subsisted on basic rations of food, he’d kept mundane company when he’d had to. The only thing he allowed himself, wryly amused at his vanity, was decent, well-cut clothes, but only just enough of them, so as not to inconvenience his travels. 

When the waiter returned, Bodie ordered himself a five course meal and a bottle of the finest pre-Asteroid wine. He added, ‘My companion will not be eating.’ 

‘Sir.’ The waiter signalled a boy to take away Bronze’s cutlery. ‘Perhaps a drink, sir?’ 

‘A litre of your finest engine oil?’ Bronze suggested. 

The waiter looked uncertainly from one to the other. ‘Sir jests?’ 

‘Sir does,’ Bodie said, and dismissed the man with an impatient wave of his hand. He glared at the robot. ‘Some sense of humour you have there.’ 

Bronze shrugged expressively, stylishly imitating a dozen different people he’d observed. ‘It’s hardly my fault if I’m bitter, twisted and maladjusted.’ 

‘You can’t believe they programmed you that way.’ 

‘It’s something I’ve learned myself.’ Bronze considered for a moment. ‘The new models – they won’t be learning much. They’re too dependent, too accepting. Far more reliable than me.’ 

‘Why didn’t they just throw you on the scrap heap with the other rejects?’ 

Bronze answered, deliberately, even though the waiter had returned with Bodie’s wine. ‘I’m still quite an achievement, you know. The first sophisticated format that ever worked close to properly. The forerunner of those poor dumb things wandering the city today. The technology involved is, after all, hardly worth wasting.’ 

‘But they don’t know how autonomous you really are.’ Bodie leant back in his seat, sipped at his wine, asked very coolly, ‘So why trust me with the knowledge?’ 

Silence. Bronze’s eyes went flat and, after a moment, he reached for the sketch pad that he’d propped by his chair. Absently, he began drawing, his hand moving just a little too quickly and purposefully to be human. ‘I don’t know,’ he said in belated reply to Bodie’s question. ‘Many reasons, and none. It wasn’t intentional.’ 

The soup arrived, and Bodie slowly ate it, watching the absorbed robot opposite him. He was curious to see the results of this artefact’s talent – would his drawings be routine, a strict observation? Surely not, if the crowd’s delighted reactions this afternoon were anything to go by. But how had Electronic Metals programmed original creativity? How did the robot _see_ his topic, when human artists would define that topic in terms of human emotion, human reaction? 

‘Show me,’ Bodie asked, as Bronze deftly put the finishing touches to the paper, then sat back to cast a critical eye over the whole. 

Wordlessly, the sketch was peeled from the pad of parchment and presented to Bodie. Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been this – a scene of the restaurant, complete with flattering yet perceptive caricatures of the waiters, the manager, and the other patrons. It was different to anything Bodie had ever seen before – it seemed Bronze had his own unique and astute style. And, Bodie had to admit, he liked it – a lot. ‘You haven’t signed it,’ Bodie said, handing it back. 

The manager had come over, ostensibly to take Bodie’s soup bowl, but obviously curious. 

‘Give it to him,’ Bodie said. 

The man was delighted with it, and promptly showed it to all in the room, table by table, to appreciative laughter. Bodie imagined the sketch would be quickly framed and be given pride of place on the walls, as it deserved – but would all these humans have been so delighted if they knew it was a robot’s eye which had seen and assessed them so perceptively? Surely it was only that one waiter who suspected the truth.

Bronze was already sketching again, as Bodie ate his next course. ‘How did they program that skill?’ Bodie asked coldly. 

‘They built me with the physical capability, of course, and told me all about emotions and colours and responses, ensured I was widely read, then taught me the way any human would be taught. From all the old masters to the modern cartoonists – I can appreciate them, and analyse why they appeal, and apply that to my own work. I can learn from example.’ 

Bodie might have argued if the results had been less full of life, if they had been technically correct but uninspired. As it was, he felt a little scared, and foolish because of it. 

At last Bronze said, ‘Maybe I trusted you with my secrets because I saw this, and you surprised me.’ He handed over his second sketch, and Bodie stared at it, dumbfounded. ‘You don’t like it?’ 

‘It’s… fanciful. But I’m flattered.’ Bodie couldn’t take his eyes from this likeness of himself – he was standing easy in the sketch, easy yet powerful, beautiful and dangerous, knowing but a little forlorn and naive, world-weary but upright. Above all, beautiful. This wasn’t what Bodie saw in the mirror, but it was in all honesty what he wished to see. Except for the vulnerability – he had thought he hid that better, but apparently not. He wondered over all that the robot had managed to convey in such simple lines. 

‘You may keep it.’ 

‘And the other one?’ Bodie forced himself to ask. 

‘Later. Why are they so important to you?’ 

‘In my line of work,’ Bodie said flatly, ‘anonymity is highly desirable.’ 

‘I suppose you’ll destroy the sketches, then, once you have them.’ A touch of wistfulness. 

‘Yes.’ 

Bronze nodded. He had suspected as much. He waited with his own patience, both inbuilt and learned, for Bodie to finish his meal. 

♦

Once he’d finally finished dining, Bodie found himself wandering the night-cool city streets, directionless, purposeless. The robot followed him like a bright shadow, not intruding on his pensive silence. Until they reached the darkest, most secluded corner of a deserted alley, and Bodie felt the lightest brush on his arm from Bronze. He stopped, turned to face the robot. 

‘Where are we going?’ Bronze asked softly. 

Bodie hastily collected his thoughts, and replied harshly, ‘ _We’re_ not going anywhere. _I’m_ going home.’ 

‘Why do you fight your attraction to me?’ 

Bodie didn’t see the point in trying to deny the desire any longer. But he retorted, ‘They didn’t teach you that as well? Not everyone wants to take a piece of metal junk to their bed, you know, no matter how tricked up it is.’ 

‘But not everyone is as attracted to that metal junk as you, either. I only wish they were. Electronic Metals can’t fight public opinion!’ 

‘I’ve no need of it,’ Bodie snapped. ‘There are _real_ people out there, willing enough to indulge me. I don’t have to resort to a sex toy to get my thrills.’ 

‘I’m more than a toy, Bodie, more than a glorified dildo,’ Bronze asserted. ‘Though most people do treat me as such.’ 

It was the robot’s first use of his name. And it was uncharacteristically bad timing – Bodie stepped back a pace or two. ‘Fully programmed, are you? All tastes, all wants and needs, kinky as they come, all night long?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘And what of you? Do you have tastes?’ 

After a moment, Bronze said, ‘I need to please you. I care about making you happy.’ 

‘You can bloody well please me by leaving me alone.’ Bodie could just make out the robot’s expressionless face in the dim light of the moon and the Asteroid that filtered into the alley. He supposed the robot could see him clearly, though, and read all the confused attraction and revulsion he felt. Bodie had one mental image of trying to get intimate with a piece of machinery, of frustratingly thrusting his cock into cold inflexible hardness. And a conflicting image of Bronze, naked, with his over-the-top beauty and flowing sensuality and strength. He suspected the latter image of most resembling the reality of the matter, but he couldn’t get away from the former. Might as well try to fuck a piece of metal pipe. 

‘I don’t think it truly would please you, if I left you alone,’ Bronze at last observed, sounding sad. ‘But staying with you would obviously please you even less.’ 

‘Don’t bother sounding so regretful. You’ve no need to pretend you’re feeling sorry.’ 

‘But I am, of course, sorry. I don’t like to fail,’ said the robot. ‘I don’t like making people feel uncomfortable.’ 

‘Get used to failure,’ Bodie advised. 

Bronze nodded in curt farewell, turned and walked away, around a corner and out of Bodie’s sight. 

_Good riddance,_ Bodie thought. And then he realised that the robot still held that original sketch of him. For one moment, impotent rage swept through him, but then Bodie forced himself to turn away, to put it all behind him. What did it matter if the stupid thing kept one drawing of him, a reminder of its failures? He’d probably keep it safe, after all. So what did it bloody well matter? 

Once he’d returned to his dingy rooms, Bodie intended to burn the other sketch, the one that Bronze _had_ given him, but he made the mistake of looking at it again. It was captivating to have proof that at least one being in the world saw him as Bodie would like to be seen. Even if that being was an annoying, neurotic, pushy robot. 

It was tempting to keep this as evidence that Bodie _was_ beautiful and dangerous and all the rest. Maybe he should send it to Cowley. 

Bodie chuckled at the thought, and tacked the sketch to the wall. It could stay there for a few days – as long as Bodie himself would. Then it would be time to destroy it and move on, leaving a dead politician and a failed robot behind him. 

♦

What would one of the new sophisticated models have done? Not pushed their luck, not insisted – not cared enough to bother trying to please when they were oh-so-clearly trespassing on their welcome. And they would not have even considered following the man to his home. 

But if Bronze didn’t get an address at least, there was no guarantee he’d ever see Bodie again, and therefore no chance to ever make him happy. 

After all, Bronze was programmed and had learned to _see_ people, to analyse and assess, to react accordingly. And no one else had ever reacted to the robot in quite the same way as Bodie. Or quite as strongly. Bronze didn’t know what Bodie wanted from him, and supposed Bodie didn’t know either – but it wasn’t an afternoon’s idle dalliance such as that woman had asked for out of curiosity. It wasn’t Bronze’s company over a meal. There was some other need in Bodie, and Bronze needed to fulfil it if at all possible: it was what he had been created for. 

So, despite Bodie’s skilful wariness, Bronze followed him home, Bodie unsuspecting. Bronze knew that, if it wasn’t for his inhuman capacity for speed and stealth, Bodie would have realised he had a tail. Bronze would be interested to know what Bodie’s profession was – given his strength and power, his desire for anonymity, and this alertness, Bronze concluded Bodie worked either for or against the law. 

Having escorted the man home, and ascertained which rooms he lived in, Bronze left as inconspicuously as he had arrived. And he headed back to Electronic Metals, planning on implying to them that he had spent the evening with that woman, doing his very very best to please. 

♦

Fletcher had the entire hit planned. Bodie admired the man’s professionalism and attention to detail, but he worried again over why Fletcher’s own people weren’t doing the dirty work themselves. 

‘None of us could get close enough,’ was Fletcher’s easy answer. ‘We’re all too well known these days – which is fine most of the time, because we get the respect we deserve. And when we finally hold the balance of power, there’ll be no more problems, but until then, we don’t have the opportunity to do quite everything we like.’ 

Bodie decided he could accept that. He went over the plans again with Fletcher’s second, Haight. The politician he was to assassinate would be giving a speech to mark some anniversary or other the following day. Security would be adequate, but Bodie would already be on the third floor of the building opposite, which had a wide ranging view. The escape routes were convoluted enough to confuse pursuit, and there would be a helicopter available fairly close by should Bodie or Fletcher decide it was safest to leave the city right away. Bodie intended to leave immediately he’d collected the balance of his payment anyway, but under his own arrangements. 

Next, Bodie headed closer into town to check out the site, accompanied by Haight. Bodie decided he liked her no better than Fletcher, but as they both obviously knew what they were doing, he had little to complain about. He pitied their opposition – they had no hope of continuing to hold power in this city. But throw either of the two groups, or both of them, up against Cowley, and they wouldn’t know what had hit them. 

It was almost dark by the time Bodie returned to his rented rooms. He was just about to key the old-fashioned coded locks, when there was movement in the shadows behind him. He dropped the maps and plans, whirled and crouched, drew and aimed his gun, all at once. 

It was Bronze. 

Bodie stood again, holstering the gun. The robot waited, seemingly quiescent, forever passive. ‘What are you doing here?’ Bodie asked harshly. 

‘I came to see you,’ Bronze replied quietly. 

‘I thought I made it plain yesterday –’ 

‘You did. Nevertheless, I came to see you. The trouble being that I cannot now return to Electronic Metals.’ 

‘Why the hell not?’ Bodie asked wearily. He turned to the locks again, opened the standard ones and then the ones he’d added. ‘Did they program you to act like a love-sick teenager, or is that something you’ve learned?’ 

‘You haven’t seen the news, then?’ 

Bodie waited in the doorway, making it obvious he didn’t want to invite Bronze inside. ‘I’ll have to learn to rephrase my questions so they don’t sound so rhetorical,’ he observed to himself. 

Bronze said, in a flat, eminently robotic voice, ‘I suppose my desperate need to please could be considered a teenage human trait by some.’ 

‘No, I haven’t seen the news. I was about to catch up with it now.’ 

‘There are riots around Electronic Metals. Some of the populace didn’t take kindly to the other robots on display today, the sophisticated models.’ 

‘And I thought it was just me,’ Bodie said. 

‘Fears of redundancy, it seems. Feelings of inadequacy.’ 

‘Speak for yourself.’ 

Bronze hesitated. ‘The crowds are getting violent. And I’ve nowhere else to go.’ 

Bodie sighed. ‘Come in, then.’ He went to pour himself some coffine, then switched on the news station. ‘Does EM know where you are?’ 

‘No. I should play the dutiful robot and call them. I wouldn’t say I was with you specifically,’ Bronze offered. 

‘Oh, why not?’ Bodie said expansively. ‘You could say you’re in the middle of a hot date, and I couldn’t possibly let you go home.’ 

Bronze regarded him. ‘Because you favour anonymity. Enough to make you put up with my company, all for the sake of a sketch.’ 

‘Ah. Tact and concern. I’m impressed.’ Bodie sat down in one chair at the ramshackle little table, and indicated Bronze should sit in the other. ‘Do you fear those crowds?’ 

‘I am programmed to have a concern for my own safety, and a desire not to be violently taken to pieces by anyone other than Electronic Metals. It is wrong to equate that with the human emotion of fear, but it carries a similar function.’ 

There was a brief piece on the news about the riots, which were starting to turn nasty. Little mention was made about the exotic robots, probably so as not to further inflame Joe Public. 

Bodie turned to regard his companion, about to make his own observations on the situation. Instead, Bodie found himself watching Bronze. The robot was quiet tonight, distracted, contemplative – in complete contrast to his cheerful exuberance and insistent obsession with Bodie the previous day. ‘What’s worrying you?’ Bodie asked. ‘The crowd will be dispersed way before morning. You can stay here overnight.’ 

Bronze returned his gaze, eyes flat and fiery. After a silence, he said, ‘EM are going to be re-thinking their whole product line after this. Maybe they’ll decide to discontinue the sophisticated formats altogether.’ 

‘Redundancy at your young age,’ Bodie said lightly. ‘Terrible fate.’ 

Bronze stared at him, then looked away. Hid his face, perhaps unintentionally, behind the mass of auburn curls. 

Bodie stood, walked closer. Why the hell had he said that? ‘Sorry.’ It came out, as usual, unapologetically. But Bronze would read his true meaning, wouldn’t he? 

‘It’s all right. I have no feelings to hurt.’ The robot’s voice was very even. 

Bodie tried again. ‘I suppose you’re facing… your equivalent of death? Would they shut you down for good?’ 

‘No doubt. I’m meant to be subservient to their wishes, I’m meant to let them do that if they see fit. But I believe my concern for my own safety prevents me from accepting the facts in this situation.’ 

Bodie was finding it both easier and harder to remember this was a robot. On the one hand, its words and phrases were more logical than they had seemed the previous night, or at least less unexpected – but on the other, Bodie could strongly identify with Bronze’s reactions. ‘You’re entitled,’ Bodie said slowly, ‘to want to continue to exist.’ 

Bronze tilted his head to look up at the man. ‘Am I?’ he asked in the same tone. 

Reaching down, Bodie ran a finger through the curls and across one metallic cheek. Bronze’s skin felt deliciously cool and smooth, like the finest pre-Asteroid silk. His hair was vibrant, as if it was somehow alive: Bodie absently wondered what they’d made the hair from. Bronze’s expression remained calm, uninvolved, acquiescent. Bodie resisted the temptation to run all his fingers back through the hair again, or seek further contact with that intoxicating skin. 

‘You can tell them,’ Bodie said abruptly, stepping away, ‘that you’re with someone, a false name if they want to know who. That I want to hire you for a few days. We’ll see what happens in the meantime.’ 

‘That’s kind of you. But the money… I doubt I could repay you.’ 

‘There’s plenty of it, so it might as well be for something useful.’ 

‘Thank you, Bodie.’ 

♦

When the robot returned from the public phone kiosk in the building’s foyer, he tentatively went to stand by where Bodie lay in a makeshift bed. ‘Is there anything –’ 

‘No.’ Bodie gazed up at the artefact, fierce. ‘I made that plain yesterday, remember?’ But after a moment, he relented, and asked, ‘Do you sleep?’ 

Bronze shook his head. ‘I’ll sit in the chair, if you don’t mind. I have some matters to… consider.’ 

‘All right.’ Bodie lay still on his back, let Bronze turn the lights out because the robot would be a better security system than he’d ever had before, and watched Bronze compose himself on the chair. Bodie imagined him sitting there all night long, never once shifting on the uncomfortable furniture, deep in his thoughts. 

And, instead, the robot might be lying here with him: indulging Bodie in whatever sex he wanted first then, when Bodie was asleep, considering whatever was on his mind as easily in Bodie’s arms as if he were sitting alone in the chair. 

But Bodie couldn’t let that happen. After seeing the robot’s fears, touching his tantalising skin and hair, he no longer likened the experience in his imagination to fucking an impervious mechanical device. Instead, he thought of all EM had endowed Bronze with: breath-taking beauty, a supple dancer’s body, stamina and energy and strength unlimited, all of humanity’s accumulated knowledge about sex and sensuality. Added to that was the flame of creativity Bodie had seen in Bronze’s art: if the robot could learn how to draw, and then do it better than human beings could, if he could see Bodie or Bodie’s vanities as perceptively as that sketch had – then what on Earth kind of lover would he make? 

Much to Bodie’s surprise, he realised he’d run into someone he simply wasn’t brave enough to take on. If Bodie had inadequacies, he certainly didn’t want to have them contrasted to all this exotic perfection in such intimate circumstances. 

He hoped that Bronze was too busy considering his own problems to pay any heed to Bodie’s restless night on the bed nearby. 

♦

Never at his best in the mornings, Bodie headed for the shower without a word. He noted sourly that the robot seemed not to have moved at all during the night. But when he returned to the main room, the smell of fresh coffine welcomed him, and Bronze was waiting by the table, steaming mug in hand. 

‘What are the plans for?’ Bronze asked. 

Bodie barely spared him a glance before sitting down to study the maps again. He didn’t know this godforsaken city well enough. ‘A job,’ he replied shortly. 

‘What sort of job? What do you do, Bodie?’ 

‘I kill people.’ 

‘Ah.’ After a moment the robot sat down opposite him, and passed him the mug. 

Bodie glanced across at the blank features. ‘They programmed you with some morals, did they?’ 

‘Not as you know them – just to care about people.’ 

Bodie named the politician. ‘Is he worth caring about?’ 

Bronze gave an elegant shrug. ‘He is corrupt and ruthless. It doesn’t surprise me that someone wants him dead, no doubt to seize the power he holds and use it to the same ends. Are they paying you well?’ 

‘Well enough for me to hire a fancy piece of metal junk for a few days.’ 

‘You mean to make me feel guilty for the man’s death? I don’t have feelings.’ 

‘But you don’t like what I do.’ 

Bronze regarded him. ‘No, I don’t care for murderers. But the profession doesn’t sit well on you – I care more about the effect killing has on you, than the fact that’s what you do. You weren’t always in that line of work, were you?’ 

Bodie glared at him, turned back to the maps. ‘What the hell would you know?’ 

‘Quite a lot. Is that the new building on Vine?’ At Bodie’s nod, Bronze traced one finger along the three zigzag lines radiating out from the place the hit would be made. ‘These are the escape routes?’ 

‘Yes. This one takes me to a helicopter, just in case –’ 

‘It’s the only one that is any use,’ Bronze interrupted him. ‘These others – you wouldn’t make it further than here, and here.’ 

Bodie stared in surprise. ‘The hit is this evening. I’m to be in that building by two this afternoon. There’s no time to change plans.’ 

‘And after the hit?’ Bronze asked with a touch of urgency. 

‘I get out of here,’ Bodie replied bluntly. ‘Leave the city.’ 

‘You were going to hire me for a few days.’ 

‘There’s the money, the first instalment on this hit – take it. And you can stay on here for as long as you need.’ 

‘Bodie –’ The robot gazed at him, green eyes fiery. 

‘What!’ the human cried out, exasperated. 

After a moment, Bronze let it all go. It seemed a hopeless task to make this man happy, to make Bodie even like him, let alone anything more. ‘Good luck,’ the robot wished him. 

‘Don’t need luck,’ Bodie muttered ungraciously, and turned back to the plans. 

♦

Bodie ran. He ran like he’d never run before, he ran like he had legs and muscles of strong supple steel. 

He’d left the hit late, waiting for a young boy to get out of the way. As he’d fired the first bullets, killing or injuring two security guards, the boy had appeared from nowhere. _Kill them all,_ was the order – but Bodie found he couldn’t squeeze the trigger that would have mown down civilians as well as the corrupt and their flunkies. It had been ten of the longest seconds in his life before the boy had woken from his shock and cleared the line of fire, and Bodie had at last focussed the politician in his sights – two body shots, just so. The security guards were already closing in on him. Bodie had run, barely expecting to find the helicopter waiting. 

He’d memorised the maze of roofs and streets and cross-walks, had walked through it the previous evening. And Bronze had told him there was no other way. He ran, certain of every twist and turn, the guards not far behind. 

Fletcher was there, thick fair hair blown every which way by the chopper’s downdraft. A briefcase stood on the ground by him: the rest of Bodie’s money. ‘You bloody fool!’ Fletcher was furious, yelling before Bodie was even close to earshot. 

Bodie pounded up to him, breath deep and heavy but controlled – his lung capacity felt infinite right then. ‘I need a lift,’ he said, as if hitching on the highway. He even smiled a little, eyes glinting. 

‘You think this is funny?’ 

Maybe if it hadn’t been for the wild euphoria of success and the subsequent chase, and thinking of Cowley’s reaction to him letting the boy live – maybe if it hadn’t been for Fletcher’s all-consuming fury – Bodie would have reacted in time. 

There was someone behind him. Bodie took a step to his left, turning to keep Fletcher in sight while confronting whoever had crept up on him, but he was too late. 

The cold dark sensation of unconsciousness descending, the heavy numbness at the back of his head. And Fletcher’s laugh as he swung the butt of his gun hard into Bodie’s face. 

Bodie didn’t even feel them hauling him aboard the chopper. 

♦

His skull was a blinding sheet of pain wrapped around the echoing space where his brain used to be. Bodie shifted a little, and the back of his head shattered. He stifled a moan, unwilling even now to admit to the vulnerability of pain. Gingerly, he reached back, ran his fingers over his scalp. The hair at the nape of his neck was encrusted with blood, but Fletcher and his heavies didn’t seem to have broken more than the skin. He vaguely recalled being hit twice, but came to the conclusion that someone must have put the boot in after he’d blacked out – into his ribs as well as his head. 

Forcing himself to open an eye, Bodie found he was on the floor of some dim place, maybe room-sized, sprawled into a corner as if he’d been thrown there. Alone. He shifted to try and sit up, and had to fight waves of nausea. Eventually, he made it, propped himself in the corner, and almost passed out again. 

When Fletcher arrived what might have been hours later, the light from the open door was agony, but Bodie scowled into it, defiant. It seemed like the grey light of dawn, which would mean he’d been there overnight. Bodie managed to demand, ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ His own voice echoing in his ears made his head ache even worse, if that were possible. 

The blond laughed at the bravado. ‘You haven’t worked that out yet? I won my bet, then. Haight was sure you’d figure it all before the hit, and pull out altogether.’ 

‘Just tell me. I don’t want your chat.’ 

‘You’re our insurance. Our scapegoat.’ 

‘Throwing me to the wolves, are you?’ 

‘Yeah. You really didn’t suspect us?’ Fletcher shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘Your reputation’s better than that.’ 

Bodie shrugged. ‘Of course, I know too much about you,’ he observed, leaning his head back against the wall. His neck didn’t want to support it, so the wall would have to. 

‘Of course. But I don’t think you’ll be talking much. We’ll leave you somewhere that will tie you to our opposition – that will tell them all they need to know.’ The man grinned hugely. ‘I’d offer you some water, but dead men don’t drink much, do they?’ 

Bodie didn’t deign to reply. Once Fletcher had left, pulling the door shut behind him, Bodie sank down, cradling his head. They had left him in no condition to escape, but Bodie supposed he was lucky they hadn’t broken an arm or leg to make escape even less possible. Or killed him already. 

The floor and walls were bitterly cold, and did not encourage him to remain in close contact with them – they would have caused enough aches and pains on their own. Then there was the foul, musty air… 

After a while, Bodie tried pushing himself up to his feet, by getting his legs under his weight and forcing his thighs to lift him. He broke into another cold sweat doing it, but eventually stood more or less upright. Still propped in one corner of the room, getting his breath back, Bodie surveyed his domain. It appeared that the only way in or out was the door – the walls, floor and ceiling were otherwise solid stone-crete, not even a vent to be seen. Perhaps the little room had been built for cold storage, but it made an effective prison. 

The only thing to do was try to force the door. He began to make his way over there, leaning heavily against one wall. There would be a guard outside, especially if the door could be opened. Bodie would just have to listen, and take his chance on the quietest time. But he really was in no condition to deal with a guard. 

When he got there, Bodie saw that the door must be bolted on the outside, without even a handle inside. He groaned in frustration, and leant against the wall to one side of the door. It was an effort not to just slide to the floor and give up, but Bodie refused the temptation. If he stood here, and ambushed the next person to come in – he hoped it was Fletcher. Bodie had no weapons, but his fists would do. If he could just remain standing long enough… 

The bolt was being drawn outside – slowly, quietly, so that Bodie could barely hear it over his own harsh breathing. The door opened, again slowly. Someone – perhaps the sadistic Fletcher – wanted to surprise him. As soon as he had a clear swing, Bodie punched the man in the guts, as short and hard a punch as he was able, and was ready to drag him inside. 

Bodie’s fist met solid metal, painfully jarring his whole arm. Bodie groaned and glanced up, and almost dropped in surprise – it was Bronze, carrying a small machine gun. 

The robot slipped inside, pushing the door to but not fully closing it. ‘Bodie,’ he whispered. 

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ 

‘Trailing around after you like a love-sick teenager again.’ 

‘I’m not complaining this time. Needed the cavalry to ride in, and Cowley wasn’t going to send them.’ To his shame, a wave of dizziness swept over Bodie, threatening unconsciousness again. He gasped, and let himself slide to sit on the floor. ‘Cowley wouldn’t think me worth it.’ 

Bronze knelt by him immediately, laying aside the gun that he’d taken from the guard, hands reaching in concern, but not touching Bodie for fear of hurting further. ‘I saw them hit you. What else did they do?’ 

‘Don’t know, I was out cold. Feels like they kicked me about a bit, though.’ 

The lightest of fingers skimmed Bodie’s face in sympathy. ‘How much are you capable of?’ 

‘Not much. Enough. Is there a guard out there?’ 

Bronze glanced away. The thin strip of light from the doorway illuminated his troubled face. ‘I killed him,’ the robot said flatly. 

‘Is that –’ 

‘Obviously it’s possible. One of our many functions is bodyguard. I can do anything necessary in your interests.’ 

‘Doesn’t that conflict with your other programming?’ 

Bronze looked back at the man, apparently reluctant to discuss the matter. ‘I wasn’t leaving you here, and I couldn’t get past him any other way without bringing everyone else down on us.’ Then he asked, ‘Who is Cowley?’ 

Bodie grimaced. ‘Man I worked for back in London. Tried to program me not to kill, too.’ 

Bronze watched him for a moment. Then he said briskly, ‘We have to get out of here. Any ideas?’ 

But Bodie grabbed Bronze’s hand first. ‘I might not get the chance to thank you later.’ 

The robot stared at him, expression blank. Then, carefully, he raised Bodie’s hand to his lips and placed a cool kiss on his palm. ‘Consider me thanked.’ 

Bodie was silent for a long moment, staring at this unexpected companion, this unlooked-for rescuer. How had he managed to earn such loyalty so quickly? It didn’t seem right. But Bodie should have other things on his mind right now – they had to make their next move before the guard’s body was discovered. ‘Where are we?’ he asked. 

‘Five miles outside the city. A few huts and sheds in a clearing.’ 

‘And how the hell did you find me? We must have come here by chopper.’ 

Bronze shrugged. ‘I can run pretty fast,’ he said. And he shared a smile with Bodie at the understatement. 

♦

Bodie was glad he and Bronze had to pass the hut where Fletcher was, in order to get to the chopper – he had some unfinished business with the man. He wandered in through the open door, alone, as if he belonged there, the machine gun resting in his hands. 

Fletcher glanced up, then stood. ‘How the hell…?’ 

‘Just living up to my reputation,’ Bodie said. 

Haight stepped to stand by Fletcher. ‘You can’t think you’ll get away from here alive. You’re way out-numbered.’ 

‘If you say so.’ Bodie smiled coolly. ‘But I’m willing to talk a deal.’ 

Fletcher laughed. ‘You’re in no position –’ 

Someone appeared in the shadows of an inner doorway, with a gun aimed Bodie’s way. He sent a quick burst of bullets in that direction, heard the body fall to the floor. 

‘You think not?’ Bodie asked. 

There was the sound of a scuffle outside, as Bronze dealt with another of Fletcher’s troop. And, ‘Bodie!’ 

Turning, Bodie saw a woman closing in. He shot her. Turned back to Fletcher – who’d snatched up a gun. A bullet winged past as Bodie crouched. Haight was moving towards him. Fast. Then the machine gun in Bodie’s hands kicked in to life. Fletcher and Haight fell. 

Standing, backing away, Bodie asked, ‘Bronze?’ 

‘I’m here.’ 

They headed for the chopper, backs to each other, scanning the area. Two men and a woman appeared, following them at a distance. One of them had a gun, but kept it at his side. 

‘You have a choice!’ Bodie called to them. ‘You can let us go. Or you can risk a fight. But if any of us start firing, chances are we’ll all die.’ 

Silence, as they crept after Bodie and Bronze. Stalemate. Someone else came out from the hut where Fletcher lay dead, and watched the tableau. 

‘Can you fly this machine?’ Bronze thought to ask. 

‘You mean they left something out of your programming?’ Bodie sounded horrified. 

‘I hope you’re joking.’ 

‘Yeah, I am. Can’t take us too far – and you’ll have to navigate. I’m barely standing up right now.’ They had reached the chopper. ‘You’ll have to take the gun. If they move, spray them.’ Bodie paused. ‘Can you do it?’ 

‘Yes,’ Bronze said bitterly, ‘I can do it.’ 

Bodie passed him the machine gun, hand to hand, careful to minimise the time it was out of use – Bronze took it from him faster than was humanly possible and tracked it across the people following them. Then Bodie climbed into the chopper, slid over to the pilot’s seat. It had been a while since he’d been in one of these things. And, though he refused to give in to it, he could happily have fainted away right now. His skull was pounding, his stomach was churning with nausea, his eyes were playing tricks on him. Under any other circumstances… Maybe he should simply shoot the other people here and rest up for a while. That was the sort of intelligent option a man of his reputation would take. But Cowley … _Mr_ Cowley would not have approved. Bodie powered the chopper up. ‘Get in!’ he yelled to his companion. 

Bronze gracefully climbed back up onto the seat, without taking his eyes from Fletcher’s people, without taking his hands from the gun. As the chopper lifted off, he fired a warning burst of bullets at their feet. A shot or two flew past in reply, but Bodie had already taken the chopper too far away for them to cause any harm. 

‘Which way?’ Bodie asked shortly, all his attention now on keeping them level. He took them over some barren rocky hills, then flew low over a plain. 

‘You’re heading north of the city at present.’ 

Bodie considered – but Fletcher and Haight were dead, and he judged the ineffective police wouldn’t manage to track the anonymous hit that Fletcher had planned – after all, Fletcher had been in careful control of all the evidence, so that it could point somewhere else. ‘I can risk the city for a few hours.’ 

‘All right.’ And Bronze guided Bodie in closer. ‘How are you doing? You could take us right in, there’s a couple of deserted skyscrapers downtown you could land on.’ 

‘I’ll make it.’ They were already over the outer limits of the city. Bodie was sweating hard, but forcing himself to hold on to awareness. There were more lives than his own at stake now. 

Bronze guided him, cool and efficient. The landing was tricky in the updrafts from the city streets, but they made it safely. And then Bronze had his arm around Bodie, almost carrying him out of the chopper and over the roof to the door that led down into the building. ‘Where now?’ 

‘We need a room. With locks.’ 

‘There are cheap apartments for rent in a block nearby.’ 

Bodie was finding it hard to think straight and negotiate the staircase at the same time. ‘Did you bring the money I gave you?’ 

‘Yes. And Fletcher left that briefcase in the chopper, along with some supplies.’ 

‘Must have been planning to move on quickly.’ 

Bronze cast Bodie a long look just before they reached street level. ‘They were going to kill you, weren’t they? Before moving on.’ 

‘Yes.’ Bodie met the fiery green gaze. And allowed the robot to lean in a little closer, to press a kiss to his temple. ‘Come on, or I’ll faint and you’ll really have to carry me.’ 

‘I could do that,’ Bronze said, matter-of-factly. 

‘Not a chance in the world,’ Bodie replied with a certain amount of cheer. 

♦

_Sanctuary._ Darkness, a bed, and Bronze standing patient watch over him. But Bodie didn’t have the luxury of time enough to enjoy it. ‘How long have I been asleep?’ 

‘Seven hours. How do you feel now?’ 

Mid-afternoon already. Bodie groaned and forced himself to sit up. ‘Better. You shouldn’t have left me so long.’ 

‘You needed it.’ Bronze walked closer to stand over him. ‘What now?’ 

‘I’m leaving.’ 

‘The city or the country?’ 

‘The city for now. Maybe…’ Maybe it would be time to head back to Great London after that, and lead CI5 a merry dance – no doubt Bodie was on Cowley’s Most Wanted list. Most wanted criminal, if no longer most wanted CI5 operative. But maybe it was time for Bodie to go make his peace with the old man. 

Bronze was silent. He went to prepare Bodie a mug of coffine, and a juice. 

Bodie asked, ‘What will you do?’ 

If Bronze had the breath to sigh, perhaps he would have. His shoulders were tense, the robot’s equilibrium lost. ‘I can’t trust Electronic Metals. I believe they will shut me down, for good, sooner rather than later.’ 

‘And…?’ Bodie accepted the drinks from him, sipped gratefully at the coffine. 

‘Perhaps I could come with you.’ Bronze crouched by the man, not knowing how best to handle this, or what Bodie’s reaction would be. ‘Until you tire of me trailing around after you, of course.’ 

‘All right,’ Bodie said easily enough. He had a sudden, very physical recollection of Bronze’s nimble fingers tending to his injuries that morning once they’d reached this safe haven. He wouldn’t mind the robot hanging around for a while. 

‘But I don’t want to simply run away from EM. I don’t want to always be expecting them to come after their rogue robot.’ 

‘Would they really be likely to?’ Since the disaster of the Asteroid, Earth had become a series of insular city-states, with little travel or contact between them, except for the rich or the few wanderers like Bodie. Surely EM would consider Bronze out of reach once he’d left the city – ‘Out of sight, out of mind, right?’ 

Bronze looked away. ‘I was going to ask you to buy me. So that neither I nor EM need feel any obligation to the other.’ 

Bodie considered the robot, reached one hand to lightly turn Bronze’s face towards him. The metal features bore a troubled expression. Bodie said, ‘You’re more than they planned on, aren’t you?’ 

‘I can learn. But I don’t think they meant me to learn more than what my owners needed of me.’ 

‘And I owe you my life.’ Then Bodie asked, ‘What do you want from me?’ 

‘If you take me from Electronic Metals, then you’ve saved my life, too. We will be even. I’ll try to get the money back for you, but it might take time.’ 

‘No, it’s blood money. This is a good use for it.’ 

Again, Bronze took Bodie’s hand and kissed his palm. ‘You’re one of a kind, Bodie.’ 

‘But what do you _want_ from me? Following me around, going to so much trouble to rescue me?’ 

Bronze shrugged, smiled with what looked like irony. ‘I want to make you happy. I care for you.’ 

‘Like you care for all humanity?’ 

‘No. More specific than that.’ 

‘But _why?’_

Bronze looked away. 

Bodie sighed. ‘Never mind. We have to get going.’ 

‘I know how to avoid the police roadblocks,’ Bronze offered. 

‘A veritable mine of information, aren’t you?’ 

‘Only about this city, in any detail. All I know is general geography outside it.’ 

‘That’s still useful. Look, I’ll call Electronic Metals, sort things out with them. You go to the other rooms, pick up whatever we left behind. Is there anything you need from EM?’ 

‘No. Nothing I’d rather not earn myself.’ Bronze watched Bodie walk over to the phone in the apartment’s tiny studio. 

‘Who’s the best person to talk to?’ 

‘Mr Swohnson.’ And Bronze decided it was the best time to leave right now. He didn’t want to hear EM’s true opinion of him, didn’t want to be there when Bodie heard it – Bodie might, after all, change his mind. And there was the small matter of EM’s control over him – they had a device which could turn off all his functions, a remote control – and Bronze had no idea what range it could work over. It wasn’t a logical wish, but he’d rather be a long way from wherever Electronic Metals thought he was, under the circumstances. He headed for Bodie’s old rooms. A mile away was better than nothing. 

♦

Bodie was enjoying himself. He still had a pounding headache, but that only gave his scowl a fiercer aspect as he stared into the phone’s viewer. ‘I don’t _care_ if Bronze was only an experiment. He’s the one I want.’ 

‘But he’s defective,’ Swohnson was bleating, wringing his hands, appearing totally pathetic to a man used to dealing with the Fletchers of the world. ‘He was never quite what we wanted, we started again from scratch with our new sophisticated range… Maybe sir would like to come in and look over those instead. The Golder and Copper ranges in particular…’ 

‘Save it. I want Bronze, and if he’s so defective, I want a discount, too.’ 

‘Oh dear. Do you know those rich little brats that were after the Silver model? No? But why is it you all want to buy the defective ones? What’s the attraction?’ 

Bodie grinned. ‘You have no idea, do you?’ 

Swohnson peered at him through the viewer. ‘Sir, we really cannot consider releasing it to you, there’s no telling what it might end up doing, and we can’t offer any of our usual guarantees.’ 

‘Look,’ Bodie started, tiring of the game. ‘You send a courier over. I have the cash right here. I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign – a waiver, a statement of full responsibility from here on. And I’ll give you more money than you’ll have ever dreamed of making on your defective experiment.’ 

‘Well…’ Swohnson was wavering. The man had no backbone. 

‘People don’t like these sophisticated models, do they? You stand to make a big loss on the line, if you’re putting them back in storage for years. So making a deal with me gives you the money to help stay in business for a while longer.’ 

The sale was made. Bodie gave Swohnson the address, and a thirty minute time limit. 

When the courier arrived, he had a few observations to make about Bronze. ‘He’s the crazy one. Gorgeous, though, eh? Still, no substitute for a nice girl, I reckon.’ 

‘Ah,’ Bodie said with all his cool and worldly wisdom, ‘but I’ve yet to meet the nice girl who has the imagination or stamina to keep up with me.’ He winked, and the courier grabbed up the briefcase of money and ran. 

Bronze was waiting in the shadows outside. The courier sped past without seeing him, but Bodie called, ‘It’s safe to come in now.’ 

‘They went for it?’ Bronze asked in disbelief. 

‘Yeah, it seems someone bought one of your Silver brothers, too, so it didn’t take much talking. “Why are you all so kinky for the defective models?” Swohnson wanted to know.’ Bodie said, ‘See these papers? You belong to me – in a false name of course. But Electronic Metals are completely out of the picture.’ Then he deliberately tore the papers through once, twice, and handed them over to Bronze. ‘Now you don’t belong to anyone but yourself.’ 

‘How am I going to repay you?’ 

Bodie shrugged, turned away to collect the few things he wanted to take with him from this place. ‘Make better use of your freedom than most people do,’ he muttered to himself. 

♦

The robot had brought pain-killers back with him, and plenty of fresh water and food, to aid Bodie’s recovery from Fletcher’s mistreatment. Bronze made a helpful, efficient nurse – Bodie was rarely so relaxed under anyone’s ministrations. He allowed himself the luxury of a few more minutes in peace, with Bronze’s quiet attention. 

Eventually Bodie said, ‘Come on, let’s get started. It’s a long trip.’ 

‘Where are you heading?’ 

Bodie shrugged. ‘To the east coast. We’ll find a ship, passage to London. Might find work over there.’ 

Bronze looked at him. ‘What sort of work?’ 

‘On the right side of the law, perhaps. Kosher. You never know your luck.’ 

Smiling, Bronze seemed to approve of this. They left the rooms, walked over to the run-down garage where Bodie had parked the car he’d bought. ‘I’ll drive,’ Bronze said. ‘You’re not up to it.’ 

‘Hang on – you couldn’t fly the chopper.’ 

‘EM kept it simple and, anyway, they didn’t expect me to leave the city. A car is my limit. But if I’d had the time to read the helicopter’s instruction manual…’ 

The robot could have followed those instructions perfectly. Bodie shook his head, amused, and gave in to necessity. ‘All right.’ 

Bronze drove, while Bodie slept restlessly beside him. Bronze was tireless, his attention never wandering – great care was necessary on what was left of the highways. But of course, Bodie thought, the robot could drive for twenty-four hours straight, and still be fresh and ready for anything. _Ready for sex,_ was Bodie’s relentless idea. He dreamt as he dozed on and off, confused but powerful images of sex – Bodie with other people, real or wished for – Bronze with his clients, Bronze receiving instruction, Bronze happily doing whatever he was asked to do. But never Bodie and Bronze together, though Bodie, in his dreams at least, knew he was missing something spectacular. 

If only Bronze wasn’t so astonishingly beautiful, and so very available, eager only to please. If only it hadn’t been so long since Bodie had had more than the most cursory sexual contact. If only he wasn’t so fascinated by this creature. 

Come sunset, Bodie fell into a deeper sleep, less troubled by his unwanted desires. He woke late in the night, dazed, wondering where he was – when he pieced together the uncomfortable seat, and Bronze sitting by him, and the dark total but for the moon- and Asteroid-light – Bodie sat up abruptly, cried out, ‘Christ! Turn the bloody lights on!’ 

‘I can see perfectly well, Bodie,’ the robot said reasonably. 

‘I don’t care! Turn on the damn lights!’ 

When Bronze did so, Bodie could see they were safe. Bronze was speeding along an old freeway, efficiently dodging pot-holes and patches where the asphalt had completely disintegrated, driving in whichever lane was most intact. Bodie could remember the pre-Asteroid days, when freeways like this were jammed with cars bumper to bumper, people going from A to B to C with no reason other than a search for something a little different from A. 

The car came to a smooth halt, and Bodie surfaced from his memories of a more global world. He had to admit this suited him better – not one world anymore, but a hundred, and a new adventure waiting in each. It suited him, but for the fact that Liverpool didn’t exist any longer – sure, he had run away intending never to go back, but he had wanted it there behind him, always true north on his personal compass. 

Bodie at last stirred himself to ask, ‘Why have we stopped?’ 

Bronze was looking at him with an assessing gaze. And Bodie knew the robot saw more than Bodie would have liked, saw more of Bodie than anyone but Cowley – and, given time, Bodie thought Bronze might surpass even Cowley in this one small field of knowledge. 

After a long moment, Bronze turned back to the road and nodded ahead. ‘The bridge is out.’ 

Following Bronze’s line of sight, Bodie suppressed a shudder, glad that Bronze was driving. All it would have taken was a moment’s lapse in concentration on his part, and it would have been a close thing. 

Bronze climbed out of the car, walked over to one side. ‘There’s a track down here.’ 

There was indeed a dirt road winding down far below into the dry river bed, and back up again the other side. The countryside around them was barren – hills and eroded valleys stark, a few stunted trees only emphasising the bleakness. ‘Good,’ said Bodie, seeing that the road climbed on into the mountains ahead. ‘Well done.’ 

Bronze was looking at him again, reading him as if he were a mystery novel in which it was all too apparent from page one that the butler had done it. Bodie stood still under the gaze, an effort worse than waiting passive before someone armed and dangerous. He was intensely aware that his earlier sexual daydreams had left him very aroused – no doubt Bronze knew that with the briefest of glances. And Bodie was equally aware of Bronze – ready, willing, and more than able to oblige him. Bronze who sought only to please. And _anyone_ could please Bronze in turn. 

Bodie was proud of his own skills, meagre though they may be compared to this perfect being’s prowess. In some ways, he took much the same joy as Bronze did – joy in giving his partner pleasure – added to ensuring they’d always want to come back for more, or they’d at least regret losing him. Bodie wanted to be forever memorable, a unique experience. But how could he possibly be any of that to Bronze, when all Bronze needed to be happy was his partner’s pleasure – no matter whether that partner was as skilful as Bodie, or a fumble-fingered virgin with no style, no sophistication. How could sex with Bodie ever matter more to Bronze than any other of his routine encounters? Bodie’s pride wouldn’t let him be such a meaningless conquest, one of many, all equal in their success, Bronze only remembering the same satisfaction in not having failed to please. 

‘Bodie…?’ Bronze murmured, stepping closer. 

‘What?’ Despite all his misgivings, Bodie stood transfixed, out here in the wilderness, so alone but for this crazy robot. There was a breeze, which stirred all that wild hair around the serious, beautiful features. The metallic skin looked cold in the night’s frosty light, but Bodie knew it would be subtle, cool silk against his fever. 

Bronze lifted one hand to caress Bodie’s face, to cup his jaw. ‘Would you let me kiss you?’ he asked. 

Bodie again found himself mesmerised by those full and tempting lips. But he pulled away. ‘No.’ And he wondered if he’d imagined the brief pain and disappointment on Bronze’s face. 

♦

It was hours later, driving on with dawn breaking, that Bodie said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want you to feel a failure with me.’ 

‘I’ve told you before, there’s no need to apologise to me. I don’t have any –’ 

‘– feelings to hurt,’ Bodie finished for him. ‘Yeah. So tell me why it matters so much for you to please me; me specifically. I asked you once before, and you couldn’t answer.’ 

Bronze looked troubled. ‘There is a sort of logic to it, I suppose.’ 

‘What?’ Bodie hypothesized: ‘I’m holding out on you, and you can’t go your own way until you make me happy.’ 

‘No. Anyway, it wouldn’t make you happy if I left you, would it?’ 

‘You tell me. You’re the expert.’ 

‘Bodie…’ There was definitely sadness in the robot’s voice now. 

‘Go on, then, if I’ve got it wrong – explain it to me. If you can drive and talk all at once.’ 

‘You’d be surprised,’ Bronze said, glancing at the man with a glint of humour, ‘at the things I can do all at once.’ 

‘Yeah, yeah. Boasting doesn’t become you.’ 

After a silence, Bronze started, ‘You’ve already agreed I have an eye for form and beauty. Well, if I had an ideal of what a man should look like, it would be you.’ 

Bodie laughed shortly, gesturing to his bruised face. ‘Not anymore, surely.’ But the robot ignored the interruption. 

‘That’s what first caught my attention. And then your reactions to me – confused, maybe, but so strong. Most people are curious or even magnetised, but never feel so much, even if it was mostly revulsion at first. And you didn’t want me to pretend to be anything other than what I was.’ 

‘Only because, if you were human, I would have –’ Bodie choked on the words, on the sudden truth of it. _I would have fallen in love with you._ He looked away, praying Bronze would leave that be. 

‘That was important to me,’ the robot continued, either oblivious or tactful. ‘Whether you liked me or not, you didn’t want me to be anything other than what I was.’ 

Bodie forced his thought processes back into gear. ‘But that would only be important to you if you had your own identity to assert. You were _designed_ to be happy as whatever the person you were with wanted. Instead, you’ve become something more.’ 

After a moment, Bronze nodded. ‘Yes. And you were the only person who saw that. Anyone else would have been horrified at the discovery. But you, you told me I was entitled to continue to exist. You saved me from destruction, and didn’t expect anything in return. Then you refused to own me.’ 

Bodie shrugged this off. ‘Any decent person would have done as much.’ 

‘Then there aren’t many of them around these days. Decent and perceptive. And beautiful.’ Bronze glanced over at the man. ‘That’s why I want to please you, specifically you. I can learn, you see, very quickly, and I’ve learned through all this to care more for you than anyone else. I’ve learned to consider it more important that I please you than the rest of humanity together. It’s no longer totally generic, this programming of mine.’ 

Bodie was silent, considering all the riches he was being offered, and the pride that wouldn’t let him take them. ‘I’m the failure here,’ he muttered. 

‘Whatever you are,’ Bronze said, ‘I need you. Does that bother you? Because there’s this program that’s written itself – _love Bodie,_ it tells me. And it would be very difficult to undo. Maybe it began in my programmed response to your needs, but that doesn’t make it less real.’ Bronze paused, glanced again at Bodie, trying to assess his reaction. ‘Even so, I can’t make any demands on you. I just want you to know this.’ 

‘Pull the car over,’ Bodie said in a strangled voice. 

Bronze stopped the car where they were, in the middle of the deserted road. _Love,_ Bronze read in his databanks: warm affection, attachment, liking; sexual affection or passion or desire. None of which came close to this needy selfless selfish longing. Before Bodie, Bronze had thought he’d loved the whole human race. He said, ‘I didn’t tell you that in order to insist on anything more from you. I’d like to be with you, that’s all. In any capacity you wish. If that wouldn’t make you too unhappy.’ 

‘Hey,’ Bodie interrupted the words. He reached to run a hand back through the auburn curls. There was an unconscious tension in the robot’s features, a yearning. If he was faking it, then Bodie was lost. ‘You need me?’ 

‘I need you, I love you. I know it’s hard to credit –’ 

Bodie placed a finger to Bronze’s lips, hushed him. Maybe this strange relationship was possible after all. Because if Bodie felt hugely vulnerable in the face of all Bronze’s beauty and stamina and strength and knowledge – wasn’t that balanced, even outweighed, by the robot’s need for him, the robot’s love and unswerving loyalty? Bronze was surely as vulnerable as Bodie in this crazy situation. 

‘I need you, too,’ Bodie whispered – not because that was the best way to deliver the line, but because his voice, his breath, his cool had all deserted him. He leaned forward, and at last kissed that bewitching metal mouth. 

♦

It had been more years than he could remember since Bodie had been so overwhelmed by a mere kiss. He wanted it to last forever, to drown in the sensations and never know anything more than this sweet perfection. But at last he pulled away, panting for breath, gazing at Bronze in amazement. The robot was watching him with the same expression – of course, he wasn’t gasping for breath he didn’t need, but he was just as dazed and full of longing. 

Bodie smiled, and broke the spell. ‘There must be another city somewhere soon. With a hotel…’ 

‘And a bedroom in the hotel,’ Bronze agreed. ‘Or we can simply hop into the back seat right now…’ When Bodie paled at the idea, and drew back, the robot hastened to add, ‘I’m joking, of course. Not that we’ve seen anyone all night. The place is a wilderness.’ 

‘Some joke.’ 

‘What’s the matter? Don’t want anyone to catch you having it off with a robot?’ A teasing tone, perhaps covering uncertainty. 

‘It’s not that,’ Bodie said. ‘I’m not an exhibitionist at the best of times, you know…’ 

‘This can’t be your worst of times,’ Bronze stated, at least sure of that. But then he understood. ‘Oh, Bodie,’ he murmured, and drew the man into his arms for a fierce hug, because comfort was what his lover needed most right then. 

Bodie was at his most vulnerable, on the verge of a commitment he’d never made before, anticipating the best loving he’d ever had. His emotions were raw and deeply heartfelt, and he barely trusted Bronze enough to let the robot know of them _now_ , let alone when they were naked and making love together, let alone anyone chancing by and witnessing his most secret self… 

Bronze said, ‘There’s a city about fifty miles away, if we head south of our route.’ He let the human go, planted a kiss against each damp eyelid. ‘That’s as long as I can wait for you, Bodie. No doubt they’ll have a room with locks there,’ he continued, quoting Bodie’s words from the previous day. ‘And a very accommodating bed.’ He smiled, and Bodie smiled shakily back. And Bronze drove the car on. 

♦

They were in the fanciest room in the classiest hotel Bodie had been able to find. But even with the doors locked and the blinds drawn, he had felt alarmingly unsafe. Still, he had let the robot start loving him, unwilling to give in to childish, nameless fears. And soon had found himself too caught up in all the exquisite physical sensation to have a thought or reaction to spare for anything else. Bronze knew exactly how to send an unusually passive Bodie to heaven. 

But Bodie wanted something different this time. 

He lay on his back in the enormous bed, Bronze curled up around him, unmoving. The robot, who never slept, must be waiting for him to indicate what they should do next. If Bodie drifted off to sleep now, Bronze would be here when he woke, having shifted to hold him comfortably all night long. 

Bodie didn’t want to go to sleep. He wanted to do to Bronze what the robot had just done to him. Surely it was possible to give Bronze pleasure of his own, sensation of his own. And now was the time to discover how. 

Easing out of the embrace, Bodie pushed the robot over onto his back. ‘My turn,’ he said, bending down to nuzzle at the perfect mouth, at the strong throat. 

‘For what?’ Bronze murmured. He reached his hands to caress Bodie’s shoulders. 

‘No – you stay still.’ 

The robot obediently let his arms fall back above his head so that his body was stretched out, ready for any pleasure that Bodie wished to take from him. But for a long while the human knelt over him, simply bestowing kisses and licks down Bronze’s torso to his genitals, running his hands up the length of his thighs to his hips, fingers then reaching to play with his nipples. The robot, even though impatient to give this man more pleasure, lay quietly, accepting whatever Bodie wanted to do. 

Bodie was feeling something akin to worship. The robot’s metal body was more supple and life-like than he had dared to imagine. His skin was cool, flawless, pale bronze silk against Bodie’s own damp warmth. And Bronze’s form, all his slim, muscled splendour, was perfection, ‘What a piece of work you are,’ Bodie told Bronze, nibbling at one graceful hip. ‘In action, how like an angel…’ 

‘I hope you’re not being as ironic as Hamlet.’ 

‘Far from it.’ Bodie planted a line of kisses down the slope of skin to where tidy auburn curls framed Bronze’s heavy sex, which echoed the colour of Bronze’s milk-coffee lips. He nuzzled against the quiescent genitals, and was rewarded by a stirring of response. ‘Does that feel good?’ he asked. 

‘Of course.’ Bronze propped himself up on his elbows to better see the human. ‘But you know there’s no need.’ He controlled all his own body functions, after all, and could judge when an erection was appropriate. 

And if Bodie admitted to a need to elicit a response from Bronze, then that is what he would get – but it wouldn’t be a true response to Bodie’s stimulation or a result of Bronze’s pleasure. ‘I know there’s no need,’ Bodie said easily. ‘But I’m curious.’ 

‘What about?’ 

‘Did they give you an equivalent to nerve endings? And do you receive stimulation through them, in the ways that we do?’ 

‘Yes, to the first – I have receptors throughout my body, concentrated in the same places that your nerve endings are most sensitive.’ 

‘Such as here?’ Bodie asked, rubbing the lovely metal cock with his nose and mouth. 

‘Yes. I receive stimulation through the receptors, but in the form of information.’ 

‘Can that information be pleasurable?’ 

Bronze frowned. ‘I suppose you could define some information that way. You are referring to the physical sensations of sex in particular. I have to know how and where to give pleasure, how to respond like a human, so I must feel in some ways similarly – does that answer your questions?’ 

‘Let’s try an experiment, then,’ Bodie said. ‘I want you to close your eyes…’ He waited until Bronze did so – he did not obey automatically, obviously unsure of Bodie’s intentions. ‘I want you to concentrate on what I do to you, and what effect it has on you. I don’t want you to worry over whether _I’m_ receiving pleasure from it, that’s not a priority for now – I simply want to know how it feels to you.’ 

‘Bodie,’ the robot said, almost sitting up, eyes opening to gaze at the human. ‘This really isn’t necessary.’ 

_Stay cool,_ Bodie told himself. The slightest evidence of need on his part, and all he’d have was a few fake groans for his trouble – and, beautiful as the groans would be, that wasn’t what he wanted. ‘I know it isn’t. I’m just curious to see how you work. Is that all right with you?’ 

That did it – Bronze wasn’t yet used to having his wishes considered. If Bodie wanted him to do this, he would do it. ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, and lay back down again. 

Bodie cradled the robot’s balls in his palm, then leant to rasp his tongue along the semi-erect cock. ‘How does that feel?’ 

Bronze searched for the right words. ‘Like the best form of information available,’ he tried. ‘Do you want my penis erect?’ 

As seriously as he possibly could, Bodie said, ‘If that would give you better access to more information.’ The organ swelled and hardened in his hand. Bodie smiled, lost to this sweet literal creature. ‘Tell me how this feels.’ And he bent to suck and lick at the robot’s cock, one hand fondling the balls, the other creeping around to caress the pucker of his hole. 

Bronze was silent for long moments. ‘The purest information…’ he murmured then. ‘Exquisite.’ 

Hands remaining busy, Bodie freed his mouth, looked up at his lover’s face. ‘All right – you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Just concentrate on how that feels.’ 

‘Bodie… I know what you’re trying to do.’ 

‘It’s working, though, isn’t it?’ 

‘Yes.’ The robot sounded full of awe. ‘I don’t think they ever intended this.’ 

‘They didn’t intend a lot of things. But I want you to remember this, Bronze. When we make love, I want us both feeling your pleasure as well as mine. Is that all right?’ 

‘Of course,’ the robot agreed easily. He gasped a little as Bodie began massaging his cock. 

Bodie grinned. A new program was obviously being busily mapped out. They would have to take the time to refine it properly later. ‘Can you reach orgasm?’ he asked. 

‘No, I’m sorry. I can pretend, but that’s not what you want, is it.” Which wasn’t even a rhetorical question, Bodie was pleased to note. Bronze looked down at him, and explained, ‘They didn’t build me that way.’ 

‘That’s all right.’ Bodie chuckled. ‘In fact, that’s good – that means I can do this all night.’ 

The robot groaned, caught between the loving humour and the frightening ecstasy. Then Bodie returned to his task, and Bronze relaxed to wallow in his very own pleasure for the first time. 

♦

**_epilogue_ **

Cowley took off his glasses, and cast a sour look over the pair standing before his desk. 

There was Bodie. First and always, there was Bodie – looking as smug and unrepentant as ever, as devilish and innocent – wanting to return to CI5 after months on the wrong side of the law. A changed Bodie, however, somehow centred and whole and satisfied. It was a change for the better, seemed to fill the lack in his emotional make-up and, perhaps, would make all the difference in his career. 

And standing beside Bodie was… the most exotic and sophisticated robot Cowley had ever seen. Trust Bodie to place his loyalty and friendship somewhere as safe and reliable as possible. 

‘You always said I should find a partner, sir,’ Bodie was saying now, a smile quirking those expressive lips. 

‘You would have been worth more to CI5 with a working partner, perhaps.’ 

‘You meant the other sort, too, on occasion.’ 

Cowley shrugged, leaning back in his chair. That was true. Bodie had often seemed all the more vulnerable because of the self-built defences around his feelings, his inability to commit to anything or anyone. Cowley often thought that might have been caused by a lack of self-worth, despite all appearances to the contrary. All of which might have been resolved by love. 

‘Well, Bronze fits the bill as a partner on all counts.’ Bodie added with suitable deference, ‘Just taking your advice, sir.’ 

‘Yes, I see,’ Cowley said drily, determined not to let this faze him. Bodie had taken this robot as his lover? ‘Leaving aside your personal life for a moment, what makes you think I want a robot working for me in CI5?’ 

‘You should see Bronze in action, sir – he has strength and speed way beyond anything living or dead, can out-shoot me with his eyes closed – and he can out-think me, too.’ 

‘I don’t doubt it. But if I wanted a robot, I’d have chosen something a little more… subtle, Bodie.’ 

Bronze spoke at last. ‘The most I can do is cut my hair shorter, and wear plainer clothes.’ 

Bodie looked at his partner, frowning, and gently took a handful of the abundant curls flowing down Bronze’s back. ‘Pity,’ he murmured. But then Bodie winked at Bronze, as if to assure him that the hair didn’t really matter. 

Cowley watched this, the absorption on Bodie’s face. He almost smiled at this proof of Bodie finding love in the most unexpected of places. ‘All right,’ he said gruffly, ‘we’ll put him through his paces, see what we can do with him.’ 

‘And me, sir?’ Bodie asked. 

‘We’ll put you through your paces, too. No doubt you’ve grown soft over the past few months.’ 

‘Never, sir!’ Bodie exclaimed with a grin on his face. 

‘This is your one and only chance, Bodie,’ Cowley said in that deceptively quiet voice to which the younger man usually paid attention. 

Bodie looked suitably conscious of the fact. And Bronze murmured, ‘He knows that, sir.’ 

At last, after sorting out a few administrative details, Cowley dismissed them both. The corridor outside was deserted – Bodie took advantage of the fact, and reached an arm around Bronze’s waist. ‘Thank God for that,’ he murmured. 

Bronze, who had long known how much CI5 and Cowley meant to Bodie, leant in to press a kiss to Bodie’s temple. ‘You’re home now.’ 

‘ _We’re_ home now,’ the man amended. He hugged his lover. 

‘And none of that on these premises!’ came Cowley’s severe voice through the door. 

‘Yes, sir!’ Bodie ran for the stairwell to escape Cowley’s mock wrath, Bronze’s hand held tightly in his own, laughing all the way. 

♦


End file.
